


Harlequin: a Molliarty Romance

by okapi



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Community: story-works, F/M, Mystery, Post-Reichenbach, Reichenbach Feels, Romance, Sex, Story within a Story, Toby is cat-napped but unharmed, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-10-01 16:37:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20338270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Just as Molly is moving on after Reichenbach, someone decides to come back from the dead.Molly/Moriarty. Romance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pleeeasetakemeaway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleeeasetakemeaway/gifts).

> A gift to all my lovely Molliarty readers, including Molliarty_Mistress, pleeesetakemeaway, and elizardbits. I hope you enjoy! Thank you for all your support!
> 
> Much of the plot is lifted from _The Eight Strokes of the Clock_ by Maurice Leblanc. Written for the DW Story Works comm 2019 Harlequin Big Bang.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly thinks she's moving on but then a silk flower in a loo interrupts her date.

“Don’t have sex with Tom tonight.”

Molly looked in the mirror. She searched the area behind her in the reflection, then she turned to make doubly certain she was alone in the loo. She set her hands on either side of the basin and dropped her head.

“And why not?” she asked.

The reply came swift and sure.

“You’re just bored.”

Molly lifted her gaze and tilted her head. The voice was coming from the orchid in the vase set between two wash basins. It was one she knew as well as her own.

“I am not,” said Molly, feeling silly arguing with a silk flower in a toilet. “I’m also depressed and anxious.”

“You’re depressed and anxious because you’re bored.”

“I’m depressed and anxious because the man I adored committed suicide! And I’ve a right to be depressed and anxious for as long as I please!”

“Sherlock Holmes isn’t dead.”

“I didn’t say the man the world thinks I adored, did I?” Molly snapped. “I’m allowed to go on with my life. I’m tired of grieving and pretending to grieve.”

There was a silence. 

“Give me tonight. Go home alone. Something will be waiting for you. Something that I hope will entertain you. If it doesn’t, well, tomorrow, do what you wish. You’ll get no interference from me.”

“It’s not your interfering I want!” cried Molly, inwardly cringing at her pathetic tone.

“I don’t peddle in promises, Molly, and I don’t give false hopes, but I’m just as bored as you are, if not more.”

Molly’s anger rose. “When I’m finally moving on, you swoop back in to make certain that I don’t! You just want to control me!”

“I only want to control the tiny part of you that thinks that having sex with that paper mâché Sherlock Holmes doppelgänger is a good idea! One night. Tonight. That’s all I’m asking, and I am asking. If I truly wanted to control you, that crouton would have been fatally lodged in that bastard’s throat, and no Heimlich maneuver would have saved him. Please, Molly, don’t have sex with him tonight.”

“How did you know that I was thinking of having sex with him?” she asked, but then answered her own question. “Oh, of course. New knickers.” She sighed. “What’s going to happen tonight instead of me having sex with Tom?”

“Tut-tut. I’m not going to spoil the surprise.”

Molly stared at the orchid for a long moment, then she sighed.

“I suppose I can wait one night. Who knows? Tom might not even want to—”

“Oh, he wants to, but what he wants is completely beside the point. Thank you.”

Suddenly, a muffled scream rang out from somewhere inside the restaurant.

Molly’s eyes went to the door. “What’s that?”

“Just the rats. Your date’s over, I’m afraid. Kudos for not ordering the special.”

Molly easily slipped back into her old mildly amused, mildly reproving tone.

“Did you give anyone plague?”

“No! You made me swear after last time!”

* * *

“But I don’t even play video games!” whined Molly after she had slit the box open and peered inside. She held up the contraption, or a piece of it, turning it about and frowning as she studied it from various angles.

Toby was balanced on his hind legs, stretched long so that his front paws were curled ‘round the edge of the box. He, too, looked with curiosity at the assembly of curved metal, buttons, switches, padded strips and straps in Molly’s hands. He let out a perplexed meow.

“The instructions to this had better be very good,” said Molly. “Or I’m returning it at once.”

Toby voiced his agreement.

* * *

In a surprising turn of events, it was the instructions which convinced Molly to give the whole thing a go.

She located the plastic-wrapped booklet at the bottom of the box, underneath the rest of the pieces. When she finally opened it and read the first page, just six words, but her heart lurched.

_For my Queen from Your Banished._

The words were hand-written. Indeed, the whole set of instructions appeared hand-written. Molly recognised the neat, legible, but still oddly spidery scrawl.

That was his. He’d written it.

The thought struck Molly like a blow.

He was alive. He was truly alive.

It was the first concrete sign of Jim that she’d had since his death. Well, except for what had happened in the loo earlier in the evening, but by the time she’d turned the key in the door of her flat, she had convinced herself that the voice in the orchid had been an auditory hallucination of her grief-stricken mind.

Then she saw the box, waiting as promised, and she didn’t know what to think.

The instructions were much better than a disembodied voice. Molly traced the words with her fingertip and decided she would sportingly play along, at least for a bit, with whatever absurdity Jim had contrived to keep her, in his words, ‘entertained.’

She’d thought he was dead. She'd tried to convince herself that he was dead a dozen times.

But he was alive, and he was contacting her after all this time. He might not be coming back to the world, but he was coming back to her.

Molly reluctantly put the instructions aside and set about unpacking the rest of the box.

“It’s a virtual reality set, Toby,” she explained when the rest of the pieces were laid out on the rug. “And, oh my god, is this real?” She quickly checked the instructions. “There’s one for you, too!”

“Wrror?” inquired Toby.

Molly blinked at the miniature headset which looked like an old-fashioned aviator ensemble of leather cap and googles. It had a long, thin arching arm extending forward from the crown and a jingling cat toy, Molly sniffed, a jingling aromatic cat toy dangling from a string.

“Catnip or no catnip, I don’t think there’s any way you’re going to submit to this willingly,” said Molly.

But she was wrong.

The instructions were exhaustive; they even included a diagram of where in the flat she, and Toby, should sit during their 'virtual experience.’

And in half an hour, she and Toby were in the positions indicated, both comfortably ensconced in the plush reclining chair with their helmets on.

“Here we go,” said Molly, adjusting the goggles once more and tapping the remote control. “I certainly hope we are entertained.”

“Rwwor!” agreed Toby and flicked his tail for good measure.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly & Jim & Toby solve a virtual mystery.
> 
> The plot is from Chapter One "One the Top of the Tower" of _The Eight Strokes of the Clock_ by Maurice Leblanc.

Molly found herself in an open-top car speeding along a country road. She turned her head and spied the driver.

“Tom!”

A shot rang out. The car swerved. Two more pops. The car halted in a ditch.

Tom leapt from the car and swore.

“Damn! Three tires! Our elopement is delayed.”

“Elopement!” exclaimed Molly, finding climbing out of the car an awkward maneuver in a long Edwardian skirt.

She looked about them. “That way,” she said, pointing.

“What’s that way?” asked Tom, kneeling to inspect the damage to the car.

“The direction of the shot. I’m off to investigate. Keep my things,” said Molly, surveying the trunks in the rear seat, “except this.”

A familiar feline head had raised the lid of one of the hampers.

Molly grabbed the hamper by the handle and set off on foot.

The scenery was enchanting, flowery meadows with snow-capped mountains in the distance. It looked so much like Switzerland that Molly had the sudden, absurd urge to yodel. Then somewhere she heard huntsmen’s horns sounding a reveille and the baying of hounds.

Molly had no notion where she was going, but she supposed her destination would meet her.

She was right.

Before long, Molly saw him, in period dress, standing before entrance-gates. He stepped forward, hat in hand, and reached for the hamper.

“You shot the car,” said Molly, handing the hamper to him.

“I did. I couldn’t resist. Thank you for coming.”

He smiled. She smiled.

He seemed so real, but when Molly instinctively reached out to touch his face, her hand recoiled at the nothingness.

His smile faded, and he looked down.

“Hello, Toby,” he said cordially.

Toby meowed a salutation and slipped out of the hamper and through the gap in the bars of the heavy entrance-gates.

“Toby!” Molly cried, then silently chastised herself for becoming genuinely alarmed at the virtual behaviour of a virtual cat in a virtual world.

“Don’t worry. There’s your entertainment.” He waved at the gate and the overgrown lawn that lay beyond. “I’d like us to inspect an old chateau. It may hold a mystery.”

“I like mysteries,” said Molly, grinning.

“I know.” He extended a hand. “Shall we?”

“Yes.”

Two planks of wood were nailed across the gates and a much-faded advertisement was plastered to them.

“Is that the date?” asked Molly.

“No, it’s twenty years old.”

“No one’s been here since then?”

He hummed as he set the empty hamper on the ground. Then he tore up a decorative iron post. He used the post as a lever to pry the planks off and then quickly, with an instrument produced from his pocket, picked the exposed lock.

“After you,” he said, balancing the iron post on his shoulder.

The gate creaked violently at his pushing.

Molly passed through.

Toby was waiting patiently at the point where the wide dirt path turned and disappeared behind a tall yew hedge.

Molly heard their feet crunching, and in no time, they had caught up with Toby. She turned.

“Good Lord! There’s got to be a mystery in a house like that!”

Rising before them was a long, dilapidated building with a ball-turret at each corner and a taller tower in-between with a viewing gallery. All the windows were shuttered, and the stone path which led to the house was cracked and covered with moss and weeds.

He chuckled and said under his breath, “Did my best.”

Fear swelled in Molly, and she turned her head and scanned his face.

“Is it you, really you, in there? Not a scam? Not a hallucination?”

“Yes, it’s me.” Something in the way he looked at her snuffed out her anxiety.

“Jim, you really are the most—”

“Let’s go exploring.”

* * *

“So, here we are,” he said as they walked up the half-demolished steps. “This is Domaine de Halingre.”

At the top of the steps was a door covered with planks, just as the gates had been. He used the iron post to make quick work of the rotting wood. Then he set the post down and once more picked the lock revealed.

“Goodness,” breathed Molly as she and Toby passed inside the hollow edifice. The hall was spacious and tiled in black and white squares. A thick veil of cobwebs hung down over an escutcheon, a family crest which depicting an eagle perched on a block of stone, and a pair of folding doors.

“Drawing room,” he said, but he was not able to open the double doors without applying the full force of his shoulder.

“Listen!” said Molly. In the quiet that followed the bang of the doors being forced, she heard a regular ticking. “How could a clock still be ticking after twenty years?”

“Let’s find out,” he said as he opened the windows and threw back the shutters.

Light flooded the room, and the grandfather clock seemed the only thing alive. The tables, chairs, sofas, books, and knick-knacks were in their proper places, and there were no signs of theft or disorder, but all was covered in layers of dust and somehow frozen in time, as if by a fairy tale curse.

Toby began to sniff and sneeze and fuzzy his whiskers as he curled himself around the many legs of the furnishings.

The three all jumped as the clock struck eight.

“You’re right. Without winding, this clock wouldn’t go for more than a week,” Jim observed as he approached the clock and opened the glass door of the tall carved case which held the pendulums and other clockwork mechanisms. “But what have we here?” He stooped and draw out a metal tube, which was resting at a slant at the back of the base. He held it up to the light.

“A telescope,” said Molly.

“Hidden yet extended to its full length.”

“What does it mean?”

He shrugged and handed it to her.

Molly turned and, seeing nothing more of note, passed under a wide arch which led from the drawing room to a smaller room furnished in leather and dark wood. A long empty glass case lined one wall. She peered at the fixtures inside.

“Guns. Hunting.” She glanced at a nearby calendar. “September 5. Today.”

“Or twenty years ago when the house was abandoned?” he suggested as he joined her.

“An anniversary. Everything neat and tidy, except for a telescope. Wonder what they were looking at? Something from the top of the house.” Molly’s thoughts spun furiously. “Stairs. We need to find the stairs.”

As if on cue, a single exclamatory feline yowl rang out.

“I think Toby’s beat us to it,” he said.

They followed Toby up one staircase and to another smaller, spiral staircase which led to the belvedere, an open-sided gallery with commanding views, or better put, it would have commanded views, but when they emerged onto a platform they discovered the gallery was surrounded by a parapet over six feet tall.

He hoisted himself atop the parapet, then said, “Come.”

She managed, even in the skirt, and Toby did, too.

The whole of the valley could be seen: a park, a wood, and some eight hundred yards away, another tower, squat and crumbling and covered with ivy.

“They were watching something,” she said. Then she looked down and along the parapet. “What they were watching we can’t know, at least for the moment, but perhaps it’s better to ask from where?”

Jim skipped along the top of the parapet with as much grace as Toby.

“From here,” he said, finally. He dropped down and began removing moss and dirt from a hole in the parapet.

She joined him with the telescope. He cleaned the lens with his sleeve.

“Try it,” he urged.

The instrument fit perfectly in the notch.

“Ladies first,” he said.

Molly bent and put her eye to the telescope.

“Oh,” she gasped.

They looked like scarecrows, but Molly knew much better.

“Two bodies,” she reported. “Based on the scraps of clothing and hats left, I’d say man and woman. They are in that far tower, leaning back against a wall of ivy.” She righted herself and bid him look.

“Either someone carried them up there or they died up there and were left to the elements,” said Molly dispassionately. “I wonder who they were? And what killed them?”

“Shall we go see the tower?” he asked.

“Of course.”

* * *

As they returned the way they’d come, Molly saw Toby vanish before her eyes.

“Toby?”

“He’s fallen asleep,” explained Jim.

Molly laughed. “I suppose it is getting late, but I must know the end of the story,” she insisted.

“That’s precisely what I was hoping for,” he said with a satisfied chuckle.

They walked toward the crumbling spire.

“It was a medieval keep,” he explained, looking up, “a fortified tower which served as a residence of last resort if an enemy took over the castle.” The inside was empty and the wooden stairs which might have led to the tower were broken and scattered.

They could find no way of getting to the top.

Molly sighed. “Are we not to know the truth?”

“That’s hardly sporting,” he said. “And not entertaining at all,” he added, with a wink. “Let’s go see your uncle.”

“My uncle!”

“Your uncle is the Comte d’ Aigleroche, a typical country squire.” Jim checked a pocket watch. “He should be back from the hunt by now.”

When Molly passed through the doors of the manor called the Chateau de la Marèze, she noticed the family crest with the eagle on the pile of rocks.

“Does Domaine de Halingre belong to my uncle?”

Jim hummed, then added, “By the way, your uncle, the count, was deserted by his first wife twenty years ago today, the opening day of hunting season in these parts. His wife ran away with the husband of a neighbour, and the two were never heard of again.”

“And what happened after that?”

“The two abandoned spouses married.”

“I suppose that’s one way to get your revenge—oh, Jim. ‘Never heard from again’ is a very suspicious phrase.”

“Isn’t it just?” he teased. “Your uncle is in the library.”

“Wait, does he know about Tom?”

“No, you were eloping secretly.”

“I see.”

Whatever Molly was expecting, it was not that the role of her virtual uncle was to be played by her real-life boss.

“Well, Molly! How did you and Prince Rénine fare in your ride?”

Molly bit her lip to keep from laughing at her stolid supervisor in got-up in Edwardian era hunting attire. “Hello, Maur—that is, Uncle. We had a bit of an adventure, finding a crumbling old house and a pair of skeletons in a tower.”

The count went pale. “Really?” he gulped. “How extraordinary.”

“We found a house abandoned, Domaine de Halingre, which must belong to our family,” said Molly.

“A distant cousin,” murmured the count as he loosened his collar.”

“We also found a telescope,” continued Molly. “And a point on the roof from which, with the telescope, could be seen a tower wherein lie two human skeletons.”

The count harrumphed. “How macabre!”

“We tried to climb the tower, but the steps have been destroyed.”

The count hummed. “Pity. Well, that does sound like a singular experience—"

“Did you, twenty years ago, lure your wife and her lover up there and trap them?” asked Molly pointedly.

“Molly, that’s an outrageous thing to say!”

Molly considered. “They could’ve screamed. Or even jumped.” She looked at Jim and met his green eyes, which sparkled.

‘Go on,’ they seemed to say. ‘Go on.’

Molly turned back to her so-called uncle and surveyed him once more. He was a heavily and powerfully built figure. A rifle was propped in the corner.

A thought occurred to Molly.

“You’re an excellent shot. It was the first day of hunting.” She exhaled. “Oh, at least you put them out their misery and didn’t leave them to die a clawing, desperate death. You shot them from the parapet, then you boarded up the house and abandoned it, but for the telescope, which…”

Molly recalled the bang of the drawing room doors.

“…you flung in the clock; certain it would be disguised by the clock’s own pieces. It was dislodged from its hiding place when we entered the room. It was blocking the pendulum, but once freed, the clock began to tick again, taking up just where it stopped.”

Molly blinked.

“You spread the rumour of the double abandonment and destroyed the stairs. No one would ever look for them or find them.”

“Not for twenty years,” interjected Jim.

“For love or for money?” mused Molly aloud. “To marry your neighbour’s wife or to have her fortune?”

“Both is good,” quipped Jim.

“What do you want, my dear?” asked the count.

The question put in that tone was as good as a confession of guilt in Molly’s mind, but that did not mean she had any idea how to respond.

“I…don’t…know,” she said slowly. Then she looked towards Jim. “What do I want?”

“A week’s holiday,” said Jim, “to visit your husband who’s in an asylum for the insane.”

Molly frowned but turned back to the count. “A week’s holiday,” she parroted.

He nodded. “As you wish.” He pulled open a desk drawer, produced a document of a single sheet of papers, signed it, and handed it to her. “And now you’d best get some sleep.”

Molly stifled a yawn as she exited the library.

“Are you entertained?” asked Jim simply.

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s better than reading a mystery novel. It’s like being inside one.”

He nodded. “Good. I’ve another, whenever you wish, but not tonight, I think?”

“No. Jim, about the holiday?”

“Go to work tomorrow as usual.”

The weight of sleep grew heavier on Molly. The world around her began to lose its definition and colour.

“Have I a husband confined to an asylum for the insane?”

“You should know better than anyone, my queen: no one confines me.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On holiday, Molly has a secret reunion with a ghost and the promise of another mystery.
> 
> Here we earn an explicit rating. Chapter tag: vaginal sex.

Molly stood on the balcony, looking out on the sparkling blue water. A warm breeze caressed her cheek, and she wondered, and not for the first time, if she weren’t still in a virtual world of Jim’s imagining.

No, this was real.

She’d gone to work the morning after the ‘Tower Mystery,’ and found her supervisor embroiled in a scandal of epic proportions. It wasn’t quite on the level of being arrested for murdering a wife and her lover and abandoning them in a tower for twenty years, but there were too many similarities to the Tower Mystery to be mere coincidence.

Nevertheless, a holiday for Molly hadn’t ensued.

In fact, it had been just the opposite. She’d had to work double shifts for the better part of a fortnight to make up for the short staffing and leadership in chaos, but when the dust finally settled, she’d been given a week off as compensation.

Holiday delayed but not denied!

Molly had been wondering just what to do with her newly acquired leisure when the confirmation emails arrived: flight and hotel room and a London cat sitting service. She hadn’t wondered for a moment the identity of her anonymous benefactor; she’d simply googled the destination, which was unknown to her, and been pleasantly surprised.

“The Mediterranean. Why not?”

Everything had gone smoothly. The first day, Molly had slept. The second day, she’d spent at the beach, reading and napping and thinking about the Tower Mystery and Jim. The third day she’d gone for a long walk and wheedled out of the hotel staff that there was, in fact, a facility they discretely called a ‘respite home,’ located a few miles away.

It might be something or it might be nothing, but there was often a grain of truth in Jim’s fantasies. Maybe he was hidden away somewhere, biding his time until…

Until what? Molly didn’t know and she knew it was futile to speculate.

After dinner, Molly pressed a button on the virtual reality set, which instinct had told her to pack. She waited ten minutes, then put on the apparatus.

* * *

They were sitting opposite each other in a dining-car of a moving train.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” she replied, startled afresh by the sight of him. “I’m enjoying my holiday, by the way, thank you.” Her words came out rather wooden as she gathered her wits and settled into the virtual environment.

Tea was laid out between them, and he made a show of pouring a cup for her and himself.

“Good. It’s a well-deserved break. I’m only sorry you had to go through a ghastly two weeks to get it.”

“No bother.”

“Tom behaving himself?”

There was a hint of genuine concern in his tone that shocked her. What an odd question. Tom hadn’t figured once among all the things Molly had been thinking about, worrying about, and wondering about.

“Yes. What with my hours, I’ve not been free of late and,” she paused, considering, “after I mentioned my solo holiday, he stopped texting, so I suppose he’s gotten the hint and moved on.” She shrugged.

“Good.”

“What are we doing here, Jim?”

“Listening.”

“All right.”

Molly kept her eyes fixed on the teacup and listened. Canceling out the usual din of a train as well as plates, glasses, and cutlery of the dining car, she did hear two voices. She closed her eyes, the better to focus her attention.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “They won’t speak if they suspect anyone’s listening.”

Well, that made it more difficult.

Molly opened her eyes and fiddled with her tea while her ears strained to make out even a portion of what was being said.

After a while, Jim coughed. “So?”

Molly felt as if she was answering an oral examination. “A brother and sister.”

Jim hummed. “Good.” He made a ‘go on’ motion with the teaspoon.

“It’s a plot. They are a meeting a third person, who is married and doesn’t want to be, tomorrow at noon at somewhere called…”

Molly frowned.

“It’s a tough one. It’s called the Trois Mathildes,” he supplied.

“Yes, well, later, there’s to be an accident involving the spouse of the third person, and the third person is to marry either the brother or the sister.”

“Very good.”

She smiled. “In the last mystery, we solved a murder. Are we to prevent one now?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s rather novel, and noble, of you.”

“Not of you, though.” He smirked, then added in that cavalier way that befitted a criminal mastermind, “And I did say, ‘maybe.’”

“When is October 12?”

“Tomorrow.”

“And when is tomorrow in this world?”

“It can be in the blink of an eye. Or it can be tomorrow. Or whenever you wish.”

Molly bore into him with her eyes and asked pointedly, “Are you nearby?”

He met her gaze, then exhaled and looked down at his tea. He stirred the teak-coloured liquid with the spoon and said,

“I’d rather not say.” He paused, then added, “I don’t like lying to you or, despite recent evidence to the contrary, being unnecessarily cruel to you.”

“Would it be dangerous for you to come to me?”

She knew the answer before she finished the question. He was supposed to be dead. Of course, it would be dangerous for him to come to her, whether he was just down the road or half a world away.

His eyes dulled, but his gaze darted about them, taking in the corridor and the changing Swiss-like landscape outside the window. He did not look at her when he spoke, and when he did speak, his voice was almost inaudible.

“Yes. For me and for you.”

Changing the subject, she said, “I’ll meet you tomorrow at eleven-thirty near this Trois Mathildes.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“And tonight...”

“Molly.”

“Is it reckless to ask you to come to me? Or just foolish? Or stupid? Or all three?”

Her heart was pounding. But was it her real heart or just her virtual one?

He pressed his lips tightly together, then shook his head once. His expression clouded, becoming a dark sinister mask.

“It’s human. But I can’t afford to be human,” he said coldly.

Molly wasn’t done with him. “Then why did you bring me here? There are many beautiful places to enjoy a much-deserved holiday. Why here?”

“As good a paradise as any.”

“I thought you didn’t lie to me. I’m not a child.” She scowled. “Or one of your minions!”

“I’ve never treated you like one!”

When he looked up, his eyes were wild. He put a hand to his clenched jaw and rubbed as if to rid the tension in it manually.

“I can take care of myself, Jim.” It was true, and it was not true. She could take care of herself in a normal world, but Jim’s world had evils that she knew were beyond her defences.

“I know, my queen, I know.” He sighed a resigned, weary sigh. “But, just for now, won’t you let me entertain you?”

She heard the pain and the plea in his voice and let it go.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

“Tomorrow,” he repeated.

* * *

Molly couldn’t sleep.

The clock read half three when she decided to put on a loose tunic and skirt and go down to the beach. The path was lit with electric torches on tall stakes, but once she reached the sand it was only starlight and a thin sliver of a crescent moon.

She’d exhausted herself wondering about Jim, whether the whole virtual reality business, the whole holiday, wasn’t an elaborate ruse to lure her to her death, or Jim to his, whether he was even alive.

She gave up trying to make sense of it all and just allowed herself to be hypnotised by the sound and spectacle of the crashing waves. They were real. She was real. She moved closer and closer, walking in the stiff, stilted fashion of the sleepwalker, towards the retreating tide.

The ocean was so vast, and she was so small. The waters could just swallow her up. The sea could just take her in its embrace, envelop her, the way Jim used to; people said that drowning was a rather peaceful way to go, she’d seen plenty of drowning victims…

The cold slap of a lurching wave against Molly’s ankle woke her from her musings.

She shivered and looked about.

She was alone. Or was she?

She felt eyes on her.

“Molly.”

She turned sharply.

No!

Yes!

He was standing before an enormous slab of rock which was to the left and at some distance from the torch which marked the beginning of the path to the hotel. She could just make out his dark silhouette against the grey of the stone. 

He was smiling. She knew, instinctively, he was smiling.

It was him.

Her eyes weren’t deceiving her. Neither were her ears.

“Molly.”

She ran to him.

She threw herself into his arms, then she pulled back suddenly and looked him up and down at him and gasped.

He tightened the embrace and brought her close again and shushed her, tickling the shell of her ear as he whispered,

“Quiet, my queen. It’s me. Not a dream. Or a hallucination.”

It was him. But it wasn’t him.

She pulled back once more.

He was different.

“I know, I know. I look horrid. Death will do that to a fellow.” He looked sheepish as he rubbed his thick, dark beard. “It hasn’t just been safety that kept me away, it’s also been vanity. I’d much rather be the well-turned-out Edwardian Prince Rénine than this starved scarecrow.” The last he pronounced with undisguised disgust.

Molly put a hand up and caressed his cheek. Her other hand ran up and down his side, noting the too-prominent bones beneath skin and shirt. She parted her lips to say his name, then thought better of it.

“Good,” he said, reading her thoughts, and kissed her.

It was him. No one kissed her like that but him.

His lips moved against hers, hard, demanding, but also telling her just how much he’d missed her.

Molly melted against his chest, only breaking away to murmur,

“You said…”

“Changeable, so changeable,” he replied, his voice as thick and as strained as hers. “Very, very silly of me to think I could just have a peek at you, just a look, to make certain with my own eyes that you’re all right, and not…and not…”

He buried his nose in her hair; she heard his ragged breath.

They were kissing again, then he trailed kisses down her neck and groaned.

“Are you…?” she began, then censored herself once more.

“No, I’m still dead.”

She tilted her head back and curled her arms around his head, smoothing his hair, then moving down to caress his shoulders through the light cotton shirt. A giggle bubbled up.

“Mm?”

She smiled at the starry sky and the receding waves. “I suppose everyone who chooses to work in a morgue has a streak of necrophilia.”

She felt the vibration of his silent laughter. “What is it called when the corpse wants to fuck you just as badly?” he asked.

“Good taste,” she replied promptly.

They were still them, laughing, chatting, this was the essence of their love, Molly realised.

Jim must’ve realised it, too, for he bit at her neck and whispered, “How I’ve missed you! You can’t know how much, love. I’ve been starving...”

“I can tell.”

“…for you.” He raised his head and kissed her.

“I’ve missed you, too, and I want you, desperately.” She sighed and took his hand in hers and guided it under her skirt, “but there’s no way this,” she rubbed the hair covering his chin with her other hand, ”is getting anywhere near this,” his fingertips brushed the wet centre of her knickers.

He snorted and swallowed and shook his head. “Noted. Tonight, you’re just being visited by a ravenous ghost.”

“Prince Rénine?”

He sniffed. “As good as any. He’s been dead for more than a century.”

“I like him.”

“He adores you.”

With the deftness of a ballroom dancer, he turned them so that it was her back against the rock. Then his fingers slipped beneath the damp knickers.

Molly watched the waves over his shoulder.

If she hadn’t been convinced by the kissing, the teasing of her clit would have revealed the identity of the person before her. He knew exactly how she pleasured herself, and he replicated it with such precision and with such tenderness that her body trembled and tears welled in her eyes.

She was suddenly reminded that this was dangerous. Every moment he was with her could get them both killed. She felt a surge of guilt.

“Don’t worry about…just go ahead and fuck me…there mightn’t be time…we mightn’t have time…”

He kissed the creases of her eyes and rubbed his bristly stubble against her cheek. His voice was full of warmth and reassurance when he said, “There’s time. Plenty of time to make you come like a queen and then fuck you like a tart. Prince Rénine is pleased with himself to be a selfish lover. Let’s see. Is it like this? Like this?” His fingers and thumb were moving, and his eyes were watching her face.

“Mm-mm.”

How long they stayed like that, Molly couldn’t say. His fingers never relented. He kissed her neck, the exposed bit of clavicle, her ear lobe and told her how much he missed her, how he dreamed of her, how strong she was, how beautiful, how brave…

All Molly could do was close her eyes and grip him by the hair and spread her legs and cling to him as her hips bucked, demanding more and more friction.

She hissed as she came then groaned and fell limp. He removed his hand from her and caught her body as it slumped. His breath was ragged in her ear.

“At least…at least…that…”

The sweetness faded, and Molly found herself unexpectedly impatient.

“Fuck me. Now. Hard.”

“Yeah?” he growled. It was a taunt.

“Yeah.”

He pushed down his trousers, a light flannel pair with a drawstring, as he pushed up her skirt.

The waistband of Molly’s knickers dug into her skin as he yanked aside the crotch and rubbed her with his prickhead, but she didn’t care.

He spat on his hand, but she hadn’t time for chivalry.

She sank her teeth into the side of his neck, biting him as hard as she could.

“Fuck me, you absolute bastard!”

He hissed between clenched teeth and shoved his prick into her, fully sheathing himself with one thrust.

It hurt, but Molly didn’t care about that, either. She curled her legs around his waist and his hands went under her bottom, supporting her as he pumped.

She was folded, wedged, in real danger of being crushed. “Between a rock and a hard prick,” she mused.

He licked her jaw. “Gorgeous cunt. The only one I’ve ever…”

“No one since…”

“Even if there had been,” he growled. “Whose name is on your lips now, my wicked girl?”

“Which lips?”

“Oh, you bloody…”

He crushed his mouth to hers.

Molly walked back to the hotel, her knickers balled in her fist, their parting exchange echoing in her mind.

“I still get my mystery, don’t I?”

“Of course. Prince Rénine wouldn’t miss it for the world!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly's second virtual mystery.
> 
> This plot is lifted from Chapter 5 "Thèrése and Germaine" of _The Eight Strokes of the Clock_ by Maurice Leblanc.

They were sitting on a terrace.

“This is Trois Mathildes?” asked Molly.

“Near it,” he replied.

Stairs led down to a beach. A set of tiny cabins were sitting close together. Four men were playing cards in front of them. A few yards away, a group of ladies were talking and knitting. Another lone cabin sat apart, closer to the water. Half a dozen bare-legged children were playing in the surf. The sea was lying between the cliffs and the clouds on the horizon.

“France?” asked Molly, looking at the curious colours of the sky.

“Normandy. Or something like it.” As a couple approached from behind them, he dropped his voice, “These are the d’Ormevals, husband and wife. They have two young daughters.”

The couple exchanged polite nods and pleasantries as if Molly and Jim were acquaintances but not friends. The wife mentioned that their daughters had returned that morning to Paris with their governess. The husband carried a blazer over his arm and several newspapers folded in his hand and complained of the heat. They advanced to the top of the stairs together, then the husband paused and asked,

“Have you the key, Thèrése?”

“Yes,” his wife replied, handing it to him.

“I shan’t read the papers just yet. Why don’t we go for a stroll?”

“I’d rather wait until the afternoon, Jacques. I’ve letters to write.”

“Very well, but when we go, let’s go to the cliff.”

The husband went down the stairs. The wife moved to the terrace railing.

Molly leaned close.

“He’s going to push her off the cliff, isn’t he?”

He smiled. “Not telling.”

“Jacques, what’s the matter?” called the wife.

“I’ve dropped the deuce of a key,” he called back.

“Oh, dear.”

She hurried down the stairs.

For several minutes, Molly could not see them. They remained close to the bottom of the under-cliff. Then they reappeared. The wife walked up the stairs and the husband, with his blazer throw over his shoulders but his papers still in hand, walked slowly towards the cabins. He passed by the bridge players. They asked him something about the cards on the table, but he gave them a dismissive wave and went on to the last isolated cabin.

Even at a distance, Molly could see him open the door, then close it behind him.

His wife remained on the terrace, staring at the water.

Nothing else happened. Time passed.

Bridge. Knitting. Children splashing.

“Someone’s going to go to Trois Mathildes, right?” asked Molly.

“But curiously no one has,” he replied. “Shall we go ourselves and see what’s happening there?”

“Yes!”

As they got to their feet, an argument broke out amongst the bridge players.

“Let’s put it to d’Ormeval,” said one. “He’ll decide.”

One went to the door of the last cabin and knocked loudly.

“D’Ormeval! Are you asleep?”

Jim shot Molly a look. Then he tore down the steps. She hurried after him.

By the time Molly reached the cabin, Jim had convinced the men to force the lock on the door. They all swept in the room.

Jacques d’Ormeval was lying flat on his face, clutching his jacket and newspaper. Blood was flowing from his back and staining his shirt.

“Where’s the knife?” said Molly, looking through the men.

A quick search was made. No knife could be found.

“We saw no one pass in or out but Jacques!” cried one of the bridge players. “Who could have done such a thing?”

“Maybe he did it to himself?” piped up another.

“Stab himself in the back?” said Molly, then huffed derisively.

“What was it, Molly?” asked Jim.

Molly leaned over the body. “Very thin dagger? More romantic than knife. And in keeping with the wound.”

He nodded.

She smiled. “No windows. No other doors. No one in or out. The wife in our sights the whole time. I love locked room mysteries.”

He smiled. “I know.”

Molly considered. “Something was supposed to happen at the Trois Mathildes. Were the brother and sister supposed to meet the wife or the husband? And what will they do when the third party doesn’t show?”

“Good questions.”

Molly looked about “The d’Ormevals don’t live here.”

“No. These one-room cabins are rented by the day for their proximity to the shore. The d’Ormevals have a suite of four bedrooms and a sitting room on the second floor of a chalet. That’s where the new widow will be. And the corpse.”

“Then that’s where we should go, too.”

* * *

“Frédéric Astaing and his sister Miss Germaine Astaing,” announced a voice.

A man entered the sitting room, lamenting,

“My poor friend…My poor friend…”

Molly and Jim were among the small company of silent persons surrounding a sobbing Thèrése d’Ormeval.

Molly watched the man called Frédéric Astaing drop beside Thèrése d’Ormeval. He took her hand, the one that had been clutching her bag, in his and stroked it while making all kinds of trite consolatory murmurings. The scene made Molly a bit queasy, and then a woman appeared in the doorway who, given her physical likeness to the man, could only have been Germaine Astaing.

Thèrése d’Ormeval looked up, and her sorrowful countenance became a wrathful mask; her rage was mirrored in the face of Germaine Astaing.

“You!” screamed Germaine. “You killed him!”

Well, that settles something, thought Molly. As the two angry women hurled insults at one another, she drifted toward the bedroom and the corpse.

“What do you have to tell me, mm?” she asked the dead man quietly. She looked about him, then her eyes went to the yellow blazer which was hanging beside the bed. She searched it for clues and found two, a letter and a photograph. After studying them both, she tucked them in the folds of her skirt and returned to the sitting room.

“Germaine Astaing has been ushered out by her brother,” whispered Jim like a good narrator.

Frédéric Astaing returned, flew to Thèrése d’Ormeval’s side. “I’m so sorry, my friend,” he began.

Germaine Astaing reappeared in the doorway. She gave a bloodcurdling scream.

Everyone in the room was staring at her. Everyone, that is, except Molly.

Molly was watching Frédéric Astaing’s hands as they, with the deftness of a conjurer or a pickpocket, returned what looked like a wide leather wallet to Thèrése d’Ormeval’s bag. Molly also noted smears of what might have been blood on Frédéric Astaing’s fingers.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, then he chastised his sister. “Really, Germaine!” and flew past her, through the door and out of the room.

Thèrése d’Ormeval and Germaine Astaing stared silently and contemptuously at each other. The other people in the room faded until it was just Molly and Jim and two very, very angry women.

“Hullo, hullo, hullo. What’s happened here?” asked Jim.

His voice was strange. Molly turned her head.

Jim was wearing a policemen’s uniform. “Do you know, Miss?” he asked politely.

Molly nodded.

Thèrése d’Ormeval and Germaine Astaing were now staring at her.

“Mrs. d’Ormeval, how long had your husband been having an affair with Miss Astaing?” asked Molly.

Thèrése d’Ormeval sighed. “Four years.”

“She killed him!” cried Germaine Astaing.

“You were planning to kill her,” said Molly.

“Lies! You’ve no proof,” said Germaine Astaing.

“But I do,” said Thèrése d’Ormeval, digging into her bag and producing the leather wallet. “I found the letters you wrote. So careless of Jacque to keep them.” She opened the wallet, but it was empty. She gaped.

Germaine Astaing looked smug. “See? You’ve no proof!”

“Your brother pilfered the letters while he was playing the part of the sympathetic friend,” said Molly. “You learned of their plot to kill you, Mrs. d’Ormeval?”

“Yes. Can you imagine the depth of betrayal I felt? The one you’ve trusted most in this life, the one you’ve sworn before God and all to love and obey, the one you’ve built a family with, simply casting you aside. And not just turning to another but actively conspiring to put an end to your life for money. His freedom I would have given him. But he and his lover and her wretched brother weren’t content with that. They wanted the money that my death would bring Jacques. First, I decided to surrender to their plan, whatever plan they were to finalise at Trois Mathildes today. Then I changed my mind and decided to do away with myself. Why shouldn’t I end my life on my own terms and not theirs? That’s why I had the knife in my bag.” She reached into her bag and drew out a bloody dagger.

“You see! You see!” chanted Germaine Astaing.

“You were resigned to suicide, assisted or solo, until you saw this,” said Molly.

She held up the photograph.

It was of Jacques d’Ormeval and two young, smiling girls. The face of another, the face of Germaine Astaing cut from a separate photograph, had been glued atop the face of the fourth person originally part of the scene.

“It fell out of his pocket when he bent down to look for the key,” said Thèrése d’Ormeval. “I picked it up. It was like a blow. Can you imagine the kind of person who would do that? Create that? It was grotesque. She,” Thèrése d’Ormeval looked at Germaine Astaing with hatred, “could have my husband and my money, but my girls. Not my girls! I stabbed him.”

“And he had the wherewithal to pocket the letter and the photograph, throw the blazer over his back to hide the wound, and retreat to a room, a locked, windowless room, to die,” said Molly. “Very neat.” She looked from one woman to the other. “And very messy.”

She looked at Jim, who was positively beaming.

“Well done, my queen,” he said.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly puts on a naughty show and gets a nasty shock. 
> 
> Chapter tags: exhibitionism, masturbation, vibrator use, and murder.

The sun was setting. Molly was stretched out on a lounge chair, thinking about Thèrése d’Ormeval and Germaine Astaing. She’d judged them, then she ruefully judged herself, for letting a man be the source of such a fantastic abundance of trouble.

It was quiet. Molly had kept the ‘Do not Disturb’ sign on the doorknob on the outside of the room. She did not want the intrusion of an attendant to turn down the bed or light the torches on the balcony or any other evening ritual. In this moment, she wanted nothing more than to be alone with her thoughts, just as earlier she’d wanted to be alone in Jim’s virtual mystery.

A dense canopy of green leaves shielded the balcony from view. Molly detected moisture in the air. She heard a distant rumble of thunder and then, a few minutes later, the light pitter-patter of rain on thick foliage.

Suddenly, just as on the beach the night before, she felt eyes on her.

Molly sat up abruptly and peered into the leaves and felt rather foolish. Jim could not possibly be there. Her room was on the top floor. At that height, there wasn’t a branch sturdy enough to bear the weight of a grown man.

Molly looked about her on the balcony. The light was dying, but there was still enough to see that he wasn’t there. He hadn’t slipped up or in or down when she was daydreaming. Molly twisted at the waist and leaned low and looked behind her. He wasn’t in the room, either.

But he was there. Somewhere. Of that, Molly was certain.

She waited for him to say her name or to make himself known, but time passed, and there was no sound but the rain.

Molly’s frustration sharpened. All these games! She’d enjoyed the game of the locked room mystery. The game of the phantom dead boyfriend was not as much fun.

Well, she knew one surefire way to smoke him out.

Molly went inside the room, found the things she sought, and took up her position on the chair, raising its back. She rolled on her side, closed her eyes, conjured up a couple of appropriately steamy memories, then tugged at one end of the sash of her wrap dress. She pulled one half of the dress aside.

She wore no knickers and no bra.

Molly caressed her breast and ran a hand down her side to her thigh and back up. She rolled flat onto her back and drew the other side of the dress away. She bent her knees and splayed them. She arched her back and played with her breasts, pushing them together, feeling their weigh, rubbing her nipples. Jim always did it a bit rougher than she did herself, but that was fine.

More than fine.

Molly’s eyes were still closed. She was thinking of him and getting wet and feeling naughty. She slid her hands down her belly to her cunt, exposing herself.

See how wet I am, you coward? Show yourself!

The anticipation was rather delicious. Any moment she was expecting his weight on her and his prick sliding into her, stretching her, filling her.

But nothing happened.

All right. You’ve forced my hand, she thought.

Molly opened her eyes and leaned down and reached beneath the chair. Her fingers found the bottle of lubricant and vibrator. She raised the back of the chair higher and resettled herself.

In a few moments, she was nude, spread, and in the throes of a thoroughly uninhibited display of exhibitionism: fucking herself with the vibrator in one hand and using the other hand to massage her clit.

Come on, love, come out of the darkness and fuck me.

Molly did not open her eyes when she felt the hand on the end of the vibrator. She simply released her grip on the device and smiled a wide, knowing grin.

Gotcha!

Molly took her hand from her clit as well and tucked both hands behind her head.

With the satisfaction of a siren, she gave herself over to the thrusting, buzzing wand and the exquisite touch that accompanied it.

Once again, she expected him to mount her and fuck her, and once again, it didn’t happen, but this time, the fault was hers. Or maybe his.

He was too good at pleasing her, and she was too quickly lost in the pleasure.

She came with a soft cry.

“So good, so good, so good,” she whispered as, at last, her eyelids fluttered open.

“WHAT?”

No one was there!

She looked down.

The vibrator was still inside her!

As Molly gently removed it, she heard a knock on the door.

“Room service. Champagne.”

Molly’s wide smile returned.

Cheeky bugger! How did he get out there so fast?

She leapt from the chair and, without bothering to cover herself, hurried inside to the door.

“MOLLY!”

Molly turned back.

Jim was on the balcony, looking more frightened than she’d ever seen him look.

In an instant, the door behind Molly opened and closed, and in an instant, something very thin and very tight was wrapped ‘round Molly’s neck.

Molly kicked and jabbed behind her while trying to pull whatever it was away. Panicked and lightheaded, she tried to scream, but no air, no sound would come.

Then, suddenly, the pressure was gone, and Molly was flung bodily onto something soft.

The bed.

Dazed and coughing, she plucked at the thing. She held it in her hand and stared at it until her brain registered it was a cord, the kind used at the hotel to tie the curtains back.

She looked over.

Jim was rising to his full stature while Molly’s attacker, dressed in the uniform of a hotel attendant, was in an unmoving and unnaturally twisted heap on the floor.

Tears pooled in Molly’s eyes. She began to shake.

Jim approached her slowly and tenderly took her in his arms. He stroked her hair and made little soothing noises.

The first word he spoke, however, was not a word of apology or an explanation. And it wasn’t a word of consolation, or even condemnation for the man on the floor.

It was an order.

It was an order with which Molly complied unquestioningly like a child and unhesitatingly like one of his minions.

“Pack.”

* * *

Molly had the sense of being outside herself, clinging like an insect to the taxi window looking in. She did not know if she would be alive by the time her taxi reached the airport. She did not know if Jim would be alive by the time her taxi reached the airport. She didn’t know anything except that a man who’d tried to kill her was dead and that she was on her way back home, alone.

With effort, Molly pulled her thoughts back to the present. She looked forward and saw the driver’s eyes reflected in the rearview mirror.

Molly had had so many shocks, and here was another one.

Seb!

Molly knew that there were few certainties in life, but one of those few certainties was that she was going to survive the taxi ride if Colonel Sebastian Moran was her driver.

Molly had not seen or heard from Seb since Jim’s suicide. She assumed he’d gone to ground, one way or another.

She smiled. He smiled.

Then he said in a truly awful American cowboy drawl,

“Don’t fret, little lady, I’ll fix your wagon. And his.”

Molly couldn’t help laughing.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abandoned once more, Molly returns to her old life and contemplates a date with Tom, a date which doesn't happen but still goes horribly wrong.
> 
> Note: Toby is cat-napped but unharmed.
> 
> Inspired by Chapter Four "The Tell-Tale Film" and Chapter Eight "At the Sign of the Mercury" of _The Eight Strokes of the Clock_ by Maurice Leblanc.

In six weeks, Molly was back where she started before the orchid in the ladies’ loo had started talking to her, that is, she was living her life and contemplating a date with Tom.

Without a single word or sign, real, virtual, or supernatural, from Jim, Molly’s paranoia had given way to depression, which had given way to anger, which had given way to nothing, and in the meantime, Tom had come back into her life.

And now Molly was trying to decide what to wear to the world premiere of _Python Girl 3_.

Tom loved the Python Girl films. They were his favourites, so much so that he’d been an extra in all three films.

Even though Molly had never seen the Python Girl films, she did not like them. She didn’t like them because she bore some resemblance, some people said a striking resemblance, to the actress who played Python Girl, Hortense Daniel. Molly’s co-workers and friends made jokes about it. Molly had even got comments from strangers on the street about it. She found it tiresome.

The superhero genre wasn’t really Molly’s cup of tea, either, but Tom’s enthusiasm struck her as charming, and when he’d secured tickets to the premiere, he’d been positively over the moon. He’d asked her to go with him, and she’d agreed.

She really didn’t know what to wear.

She was thinking about the frock with the harlequin print, but she’d worn that the last night she’d been with Jim and never since. Maybe it would be a way to banish Jim once and for all and move on. It was a nice frock, after all, and it’d be a shame to let it go to waste.

But…

Molly put off the decision once more and turned her attention to the other thing she’d be putting off: watching Tom’s scenes in the Python Girl films. He’d texted her the time stamps when he’d appeared. Molly quickly decided that rather than watch the entire films, she’d just skip to Tom’s parts. It seemed a nice thing to do and would give her something to talk about with him on their date.

At home, Molly sat down at her computer and pulled up the first Python Girl film.

Ah.

She found Tom. He was part of the crowd watching Python Girl and the Magnificent Monk-goose battle it out.

Molly stopped the film and zoomed in on Tom’s face.

Oh.

His expression was odd.

Intense. Very intense. Angry, even.

What was he looking at like that?

Molly zoomed back out.

Everyone else in the crowd was looking at the Monk-goose, but Tom was looking at Python Girl.

Hmm.

Molly rewound and played the whole scene at normal speed, then she rewound it again, stopped it again, and zoomed in on Tom again.

Strange, but no one would notice it unless they were looking for it. The average viewer in the cinema certain wouldn’t see it. Maybe Tom had just been caught at an odd moment when he was thinking about something awful or maybe he’d done it on purpose for some reason. A bet? She’d have to ask.

With a sigh, Molly moved on. Tom had two scenes in _Python Girl 2_.

“Bloody hell.”

Tom was looking at Python Girl, his expression dark and menacing and something Molly couldn’t readily identify. Then it hit her. Possessive. Tom looked like the Python Girl’s very jealous boyfriend.

Molly watched the scene three times and shook her head. All the other people in the scene, including Python Girl herself were looking shocked and afraid because the Evil Lord Lupin had just appeared with his minions.

With a slight anxiety, Molly advanced to Tom’s last scene.

“Ugh!”

Why was he looking like that at Python Girl? No one else in the background was looking at her like that.

Tom looked like he wanted to kill her, like he was going to kill her.

Molly shivered.

No.

She was overreacting. There had to be a simple, innocuous explanation.

She cast her mind back and tried to remember if Tom had said anything that would give a clue and drew a blank.

“It’s probably nothing. I’m imagining things,” she said aloud.

Toby, who’d been curled in her lap the whole time, respectfully meowed his dissent opinion.

In the morning, before Molly could talk herself out of it, she texted Tom and said that she was very sorry, but she couldn’t make the premiere because Toby was ill. She felt no guilt at the lie, only relief, and she took that to be a sign she’d made the right decision. Tom’s reply was another sign.

**Guess I’ll have to stop you being a crazy cat lady to have any fun. Bitch.**

Molly stared at her mobile. Her first thought was she didn’t really know Tom at all. Her second thought was that the harlequin dress would’ve been wasted on him.

* * *

Molly returned home from work that evening to a quiet flat.

A too quiet flat.

“Toby?”

Molly went to the bedroom to change her clothes.

No Toby.

Molly changed her clothes and checked the bathroom.

No Toby.

Molly searched the flat.

“Toby?”

Molly knocked on the doors of her neighbours. She called the building manager.

Nobody had been in the flat. Nobody had seen Toby.

Molly returned to her flat and remembered Tom’s text.

**Guess I’ll have to stop you being a crazy cat lady to have any fun. Bitch.**

No. He wouldn’t have…he couldn’t have…

What to do? Call the police for a missing cat?

Sally.

Molly texted Sally Donovan, not giving any details, just saying she had a problem and asking Sally to contact her as soon as convenient.

As Molly searched the flat again, a question hung in her mind.

Was she being paranoid about Tom or not?

Finally, Molly’s eyes rested on the box with the virtual reality set.

* * *

She was running through a green meadow towards the picture postcard mountains, calling his name.

“Prince Rénine!”

Molly heard galloping hooves, then there he was, coming towards her on a handsome brown steed. With practised ease, he swung out of the saddled and strode towards her.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she stammered.

“You don’t know what?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

“I don’t know if Tom took Toby.”

Molly told him everything. When she was done, he said,

“When Donovan calls, tell her what’s happened.”

“But…”

“You’ll get him back, I promise.”

“You said you didn’t peddle in promises.”

“I said I didn’t give false hopes. You’ll get him back.”

He mounted the horse and rode away.

No sooner had Molly removed the virtual headset than her phone was buzzing.

* * *

“I’m on my way,” said Sally Donovan when Molly had told her about Toby being missing.

“Really?” asked Molly, a bit surprised. “For a cat?” Toby was very important to her, but she knew he probably wasn’t quite so important to Scotland Yard.

“Not exactly. Your name and number showed up in the mobile of a person who is of great interest to us at the moment.”

“Tom’s in another kind of trouble?”

“You could say that,” Sally huffed. “Do you know him well?”

“I stood him up tonight. We were supposed to go to the premiere of _Python Girl 3_.”

“Then I’m definitely coming over because Hortense Daniel has disappeared from the premiere. She was last seen with your pal Tom. And we have reason to believe she didn’t leave of her own free will.”

“Oh, God.”

* * *

To avoid going mad with worry, Molly decided to clean the flat. She cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, waiting for her mobile to buzz.

Two hours later, it did.

Sally.

“Molly, I need your help.”

“Of course.

“It’s a bit unconventional.”

Molly thought of Jim and laughed mirthlessly. “I work in a morgue, remember?”

“We haven’t found Toby yet,” Molly’s heart sank, “but we do have the person you call Tom in custody. He’s a bit of a character. He won’t tell us where Hortense or Toby are, but I have a hunch I can get him to talk—with your help.”

“Of course! Anything! What do you need?”

“I need you to be Python Girl.”

* * *

Four hours later, Molly was on her way home. Hers was a mix of emotions. One, she’d helped the police, and Tom had cracked. Plus, as Python Girl, a very, very angry Python Girl, she’d had the opportunity to tell Tom just what she thought of him. But she’d changed out of the costume Sally had given her, provided her statement, and been sent on her way before Tom revealed what he’d done with Toby. Molly couldn't help thinking the worst. The police questioning was still focusing on Hortense Daniel. Sally promised to contact Molly as soon as they had any news about Toby, regardless of the hour.

Molly turned her key in the lock.

“ME-E-EOW!”

“TOBY!”

He leapt into her arms. She cuddled him and scratched behind his ears and showered him with all kinds of love. Then she carried him about the flat, looking.

The flat was empty, but Toby was back and, as far as Molly could tell, unharmed.

“Shall we go into the strange world and thank him, Toby?” asked Molly.

Toby’s meow said that he wasn’t doing anything until he got his dinner.

“Oh, you must be starving!”

While Toby ate, Molly returned to Jim's virtual world.

* * *

This time she found herself not in the green meadow but rather on the steps of Domaine de Halingre. She ran up the steps and into the sitting room. The room was as it had been, except for having undergone a thorough cleaning. The dust and cobwebs were gone. Everything looked polished and new.

He was standing in front of a far window when she entered.

He turned and smiled at her and said gently,

“Told you so.”

She smiled back, then said coolly, “You’ve known all along about Tom.”

“I’m a specialist, don’t you know?” he said. He took a couple of steps one way, then turned and took a couple of steps back while he fiddled with his cuff. “Can’t be helped. A dermatologist sees spots everywhere he goes.”

“And what do you see?”

“Evil.”

“Everywhere you go?”

“Almost everywhere. You take yourself with you, or so they say.”

“What do they know?”

“Bollocks. They always know bollocks.” Then he turned to face her and stood up straight and smoothed a fastidious hand down the front of his suit. “Hungry?”

The question surprised Molly. She considered.

“Starved. Last time I ate was lunch.”

“That’s a crime,” he said. “End of Baker Street, there’s a good Chinese stays open ’til two. The clientele used to be shite, but I heard he died.”

Molly stared. She couldn’t believe what he was saying. “What does this mean?”

He replied in a sing-song voice accompanied by jazz hands. “Fold up the shroud! Roll back the stone! It’s resurrection time!”

He looked like a singing, dancing frog, and Molly couldn’t help laughing, but a tiny anxiety still plagued her.

“Really? You’re really back?” she asked.

“Let me prove it to you. Tuck Toby in tight, put on something pretty, and meet me downstairs in ten minutes.”

Molly’s heart leapt. “I’m wearing my harlequin dress!” she said firmly.

He whistled and gave a mock groan. “God, I love that one!”

And with that, the grandfather clock began to strike eight.

* * *

He was standing under the streetlight.

He took his hands from his pockets and opened his arms and turned in a tight circle.

Just as on the beach, Molly ran to him.

He picked her up and twirled her around, kissing her soundly as he set her feet on the ground.

When the kiss broke, she caressed his clean-shaven cheek, then she brushed his shoulder and said,

“I’m probably the only one in the world who thinks a few cat hairs improves a bespoke Savile Row suit.”

“Not true,” he replied. “Toby’s of the same opinion. Come on. Let’s eat.”

“Yeah, I think you’re going to need your strength for the rest of the night,” she teased. "I don't appreciate being abandoned like that, necessary or not. I plan to have my pound of flesh, and then some."

"Oof!" he groaned. "Just how am I going to think about food when you tempt me like that?"

When they reached the corner, Molly’s mobile buzzed. She glanced at it.

“Oh, shit. It’s from Sally. You know, I completely forget to tell her about Toby—oh, God.”

“What?”

Molly didn’t answer him at first. She read the text, then tapped a reply, then dropped her mobile back in her purse.

“Hortense Daniel was found alive.”

“Mm.”

“Tom—”

“Not so lucky?”

“He was found dead in a police holding cell. With three reptiles of the constrictor variety.”

Jim grinned. “Who says there’s no poetry in poetic justice?" Then he began to sing, "Oh, Tommy boy, from glen to glen! Live by the snake…”

“Vicious. And perfect,” she said.

He put his arm around her, and they continued down street.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All's well that ends well.
> 
> For anyone who is not keen on porn, skip to the last 100 words. 
> 
> For anyone who is keen on porn, the chapter tags are: bondage, cunnilingus, pegging, nipple clamps, vaginal sex, shower sex, vaginal fingering, and oral sex. Enough to be going on, yeah?
> 
> One last thanks to my Molliarty friends!

The intricate ironwork of the headboard and footboard of Molly’s bed was not just beautiful, it was also practical.

Jim was on his back. With lengths of soft, strong, black rope, his wrists were tied together, and his ankles were tethered to the footboard.

Molly kept her balance by gripping the top of the headboard. Her bent knees were on either side of Jim. She raised and lowered herself according to her whim and pleasure.

Everything, at this point, was being done according to Molly’s whim and pleasure.

She reached down and spread herself when she wanted Jim to suck her clit. She rolled her hips slightly when she wanted him to tongue-fuck her cunt. She’d come once already, with his name on her lips and his lips on her cunt.

But it wasn’t enough.

“More,” she demanded.

Jim hummed.

Molly reached down, petted the top of his head affectionately, then opened herself to him. He suckled her clit with a bit more force than the first time. She knew she’d be raw by morning, but she didn’t care.

“Perfect,” she breathed, then she looked over her shoulder, behind her.

His prick was hard, of course. It made her mouth water. She wanted nothing more than to sink down on it, to fill herself with it. He pulled on his ankle bonds, and she bit back a groan.

She didn’t fuck herself, and she didn’t encourage him. She had him in her power for the moment.

“No,” she said, in answer to an unspoken question. “You’ve been so naughty, my love, leaving me alone for so long.” She indulged in a rather petulant tone that was beneath her.

But not as beneath her as he was!

He didn’t stop pleasuring her, not even to make a noise of reply or rebuttal.

Molly came once more. Then Jim’s teeth gently nipped at her inner thigh.

He’d had enough, and so had she.

For now.

She lifted off, pulled back, and looked down.

“You’re a wreck.”

He grinned. “Whose fault is that?”

Molly smiled and went to the bathroom for a wet flannel and a dry towel. She cleaned them both but was careful not to touch his prick.

“You need to suffer a bit more.”

He chuckled. “Who says I’m suffering?”

She untied him, rolled him onto his stomach, carefully inserted a few pillows under him, and retied him, this time, wrists to the headboard as well as ankles to the footboard.

“Oh, my dear, I’ve been so bad.”

His sarcastic tone was half-muffled by the bedding.

“I know. You made choices.” She went to the wardrobe.

He turned his head, and when he spoke, his voice was more sober.

“I made decisions that I knew would hurt you,” he admitted.

“Without warning me.” She found the harness and put it on.

“Without warning you. There were reasons, but they don’t matter now.”

She adjusted the harness and returned to the bed. “No, they don’t because now you’re my little bitch.

He sighed contentedly.

She stretched him and slicked her cock in silence. Then she settled behind him and teased his hole with the silicone prickhead.

She leaned over him and cooed softly in his ear. “Shall I make you mine slowly and sweetly?”

“Please do.” She could hear his smile. “Be gentle, my love. It’s been so long.”

“Oh, yeah?” With one hand on his buttock and one hand on the prick, she slammed into him with one very hard, very quick, and very deep thrust.

“FUCK!”

“That’s ‘without warning,’” she said coldly. “Remember it. With. Out. Warning.” She pulled out, then shoved the prick back in with every word.

“UGH!” The muscles of his arms strained as he pulled, but the headboard and footboard did not yield. “WHO TAUGHT YOU TO TIE KNOTS?”

“Seb.”

“Bastard!”

She laughed a dark laugh. With the full length of the prick inside him, she leaned forward again and rubbed his lower back with both of her hands. Slick oozed out of the creases where his flesh met her toy.

Molly pulled out once more, then pushed back in. She sped up, then slowed down, until she found the rhythm she could maintain.

“I do not apologise,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I do not make promises. I do not give false hope…”

“But?” prompted Molly, admiring the way the dark blue shaft spread his rim and disappeared inside him.

“But I love you with everything I am. And I haven’t just killed for you. Killing is easy. I’ve stayed alive for you, too. Not so easy, that. Life can be so boring sometimes.”

She considered the scars on his back, the ones she recognised and the ones she didn’t.

She pulled out completely and unfastened the harness and let it drop.

“You’re forgiven,” she said abruptly.

“Thank you.”

She tied him sitting up this time, his back against the headboard with just his wrists attached, arms extended. It was quite extraordinary, she considered, that he let her manipulate his body so without a word of protest or complaint.

In her hands, he was like a doll. A very naughty doll, of course.

He stifled a cry when she finally took the nipple clamps off and gave a kind of high-pitched whimper when she licked his chest.

She looked down at his much-neglected prick.

“Please,” he begged.

“No apologies. No promises. No false hopes,” she parroted back.

“I’m a bastard. That’s never been a point of debate. But please.”

“Please what?”

His tone went silkily conciliatory.

“Please fuck me with that gorgeous pussy, Mistress.”

She reached for the headboard and positioned herself and sank down upon his prick.

“Halle-fucking-lujah!” he exclaimed.

Their noses touched.

“Kiss me,” she said.

He gave a half-smile. Then he jerked his arms, ripping the cords from their moorings before he enfolded her in his embrace and kissed her.

He kept on kissing her as she bounced in his lap, aided and guided by his hands on her hips.

Once, twice, and he came with a quiet grunt.

He held her. She rested her head on his shoulder.

“Shower?”

“Sounds good.”

* * *

They tiptoed around the resurrected wooden valet stand where he'd always hung his clothes and her harlequin print dress, which was in a crumpled pile left on the floor.

“Tits,” he said with a juvenile smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows as the steam filled the bathroom.

There was some washing, but it, as he’d said, was mostly about tits: lathering them, rinsing them, fondling them, sucking them.

Molly turned the water off, got on her knees, and let him slide his prick between her tits as she squeezed them together. He ended up decorating them with streaks of come, which he rubbed in feral fashion into her skin, then dutifully washed off.

Molly enjoyed indulging him as much as the acts themselves.

When the hot water threatened to run out, they turned off the taps for the last time and exited the shower.

He dried her with a big fluffy towel, taking time to rub between her legs.

“More?” he asked.

“A bit,” she said, wobbling from fatigue as much as desire. “Then take me to bed and let’s do it the old-fashioned way.”

He got her nice and needy, then swept her up in his arms and carried her to bed.

She was on her back, almost doubled in half, trying to grip the headboard as he pushed into her. He kissed her face, cheeks, eyelids, jaw, and the tip of her nose.

“You have spoiled me for any kind of life that does not include you,” she confessed.

“Pity that,” he said in the most unrepentant tone in the history of human speech.

She cleaned them after he came, then slipped on a V-neck cotton nightgown. He didn’t care, but she never felt completely comfortable sleeping in the nude.

She knew them both too well, however, to even think about knickers.

He threw back the bedclothes, and she crawled in beside him, curling ‘round to be the little spoon.

“You’ve a day off tomorrow,” he said.

“Have I?”

“Hmm.”

“That’s nice.” She yawned and drew the covers up. “I may spend most of it in bed.”

“Sounds like a wonderful idea.” He nuzzled at her neck. “Sweet dreams, my queen.”

“You, too,” she murmured. Her eyelids drooped.

For a few minutes, Molly simply savoured his warmth and closeness.

But then, as things often did with them, Molly got a bit too warm.

She turned her head and made a little noise.

He moved his arm, which had been resting at her waist, and brought his hand to the hem of her nightgown.

“Mm.” She parted her legs to welcome his hand. “Hold me a bit?”

He kissed her neck. “Like this?” He cupped her sex, not moving his hand or his fingers, just holding her.

She hummed and squeezed her thighs. Then she rolled her upper body towards him and pulled at the neck of the nightgown until one of her breasts popped out.

He latched at once and began sucking the nipple and flicking it with his tongue.

“Oh, fuck, love. Why am I such a tart for you?” It was a rhetorical question, directed at the ceiling, and she curled an arm around his neck and stroked his hair.

He pulled off. “It’s a mystery for the ages, my dear.”

The hand between her legs moved.

“You’re going to fuck me, aren’t you?” asked Molly.

He pulled back to look at her with mild disdain. “Naturally!” he scoffed.

She laughed a tired laugh.

He brought her off with his hand as his teeth grazed her nipple for the umpteenth time.

She grabbed his hair by the roots and pulled his head back. “I’m sucking your cock,” she told him in a tone that brokered no argument.

He wheezed and said, “As you wish.”

She was, admittedly, a bit mad by the time she reached his prick. She’d kissed him hard, then licked and bit at his neck and chest and belly.

“Love, love, love,” he chanted.

She licked his balls and up and down his shaft and suckled his prickhead, and by the time, she had the whole shaft in her mouth, he was babbling.

“Missed you so much, you don’t even know, so many times, my queen, I wanted to call, write, something, but no, so I thought up little stories that would make you smile, I just wanted to make you smile, I wanted to kill that bastard Tommy boy with that fucking crouton, too, but then I said ‘no, Jimmy, she’s got a right to move on, you’ve been a right bastard to her,’ but I got your cat back, didn’t I, almost got you killed, too, almost, but I did get your cat back, oh, fuck me, your gorgeous puss…”

She pulled off and let him come on her tits once more. Then she made him clean her with his tongue.

When he was done and they were clean, he bent low and kissed her sweetly on the forehead and said,

“Let’s go to sleep, my tart.”

* * *

The collective snoring woke Toby, who had been dozing in his usual spot on the sitting room window seat. He stood and stretched and looked out the window for any pre-dawn shenanigans worth observing. Seeing none, he descended with his usual grace and, bypassing his own bed, made his way on silent paws to the bedroom.

He surveyed the scene, then curled himself atop a soft pile of pretty fabric. He decided that he would give his pets an hour or so before he let them know, in no uncertain terms, that was time for his breakfast. After all, they’d had been through quite a bit of late, and Toby was, at heart, a romantic.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
